'Standand stille as stone'

 

On 28 May 1265 Lord Edward escaped from custody at Hereford. After the defection of so many great lords, principally Gilbert de Clare and John Giffard, Edward's escape was a disaster for the crumbling Montfortian regime.

The prince had been treated as a prisoner on parole since March, and was dragged along with his father, Henry III, and the court to Hereford. Companions already known to Edward were appointed to attend him. These were Thomas de Clare, younger brother of Gilbert the Red, Earl of Gloucester, Robert de Ros and Henry de Montfort, one of Earl Simon's sons.

Henry was there to watch Edward closely and follow him about. As Robert of Gloucester put it in the Middle English:

“He bitoke him Sir Henri is sone to be is companion, With him to wende aboute, to syew him up and doun”.

Simon had fixed his headquarters at Hereford to deal with his enemies in Wales and the Marches, and was careful to keep Edward in tight custody. His big mistake was to allow Thomas de Clare access to the prince. Thomas was described by another chronicler as Edward's 'familiar friend and bedfellow':

“Tanquam familiaris at cubicularius Domini Edwardi”.

This meant the two men shared a bed, just like Richard the Lionheart and Philip Augustus. At the time this was an expression of comradeship and royal favour, with no sexual element. The custom has fuelled modern speculation that Richard was homosexual; unless one wishes to apply the same argument to Edward Longshanks, that seems unlikely.

The horse 'of extraordinary speed' was probably delivered to Edward by Thomas, who secretly obtained it from his brother Gilbert. Edward then expressed a wish to try the animal's pace and strength against the best horses of his escort. This, he said, was to judge if it was fit to ride in a tournament.

Edward's guards, maybe not the brightest bulbs in the drawer, agreed. For this purpose the company went to a convenient spot north of the town, called Widmarsh. Here the prince insisted on trying all the other horses first and riding them into the ground. To quote Robert of Gloucester again:

“And stoned tham all wery, standand stille as stone”.

When the other beasts were disabled – 'stille as stone' – a lone horseman on a grey steed appeared on a nearby hill. He waved his bonnet, which was the signal for Edward to leap onto his swift courser. As he galloped away, the prince flung a taunt at de Ros, who had especial charge of him:

“Lordlings, now good day and greet my father and say, I shall soon see him and out of ward, if I may”.

Knowing Edward, the taunt was probably a mite less poetical and a tad more scatological. He was accompanied on his escape by two knights (one of them probably Thomas de Clare) and four squires. A party of friendly horsemen, appointed to lie in wait, fell in with them and escorted Edward to Roger Mortimer's castle at Wigmore, about 24 miles from Hereford.

The escape of the heir to the throne, Simon's prize captive, could not be concealed. Two days later the king was forced to announce it, and summon troops to meet at Worcester in order to crush John de Warenne and William de Valence. These two, recently landed at Pembroke, were marching swiftly across Wales to join Edward and his friends.

Simon and his propagandists worked feverishly to claw back public opinion. They chose an interesting angle. Edward's allies were described as rebels and traitors, but the prince himself was depicted as merely wayward and easily led: he had acted with 'inconsiderate levity' and 'wholly lost the grace of public favour'. Edward's father, the king, was then required to sign a document of excommunication against the prince, “whom the rebels had unhappily found light to believe and easy to circumvent”.

Hmm. Not sure anyone was buying that, Si.